


Electric Tattoo

by pineapple_Tattoo



Category: Rune Factory 4
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Character Development, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 08:12:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8790229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineapple_Tattoo/pseuds/pineapple_Tattoo
Summary: Since she arrived the new  'princess' of Selphia has been acting recklessly. She doesn't seem interested in getting close to any of the townsfolk, and never lets anyone accompy her when she leaves town. Does this have something to do with her amnesia? Or is it something else...Will the former monster guardians that end up living in town help tear down the wall she's put up?





	1. Chapter 1

It was a dreary night, you could barely see anything with no lights or lanterns to guide the way, even the cosmos had forgotten about the land it seemed, for thick clouds covered the sky tonight. However the monsters that roamed the land were still very much active, their constant movement illuminated by the strange swirling gates that they never seemed to stray very far from.

The gates themselves were mysterious things, capable of being destroyed but somehow the day after they would be back again seemingly unscathed, perhaps then destroyed wasn't the right word, more so just...closed temporarily. Getting closer to the entrance of the town Selphia, there was a sudden bright flash of light and a whirling noise, and there appeared a girl. She was panting heavily and had one arm slung over her side holding tightly, red steadily trickling out of her body were her hand was holding, in her other hand she was awkwardly trying to hold on to two daggers. There was various amounts of grime and sweat caked in her hair and on her face. She didn't move for a bit, trying to catch her breath, taking one final deep breath she stumbled into town and headed for a castle.

It was late, late enough to not find any villagers up and scurrying around like usual, so she ran into no one making her way through the courtyard towards a door on the far right of the castle.  
"Damn" the girl said pushing the door open with her shoulder.

"That's one hell of a haunted mansion, I mean seriously actual ghosts? Fine I can deal with those, but freaking ghosts with huge ass scythes? Really?! You've got to be kidding me.."  
She set her daggers down on a wooden table next to a forge that was in the corner. Walking to her bed she took her heavy rucksack off her back as carefully as possible, trying not to jostle her wounds. It fell to ground with a loud thump. She leaned against the bed frame for a second trying to ward off the exhaustion and nausea currently nagging at her.

"I'm losing too much blood, I need to take care of this before it gets worse" she pushed off the bed frame and headed for her bathroom. Wincing, she stripped off her now ruined armor and equally ruined tank top followed by her bra. Twisting around and looking in the mirror she grimaced.

"That ghost did a real number on me..." The wound ran from the far right of the middle of her back and went down diagonally curving around her and ending around the waist.  
Working as quickly as she could now she opened the cabinet above the sink and grabbed her makeshift medicine kit. She never did bother getting a proper one. Setting that on the sink she snagged a hand towel and pressed it hard against her back, where the scythe had cut the deepest, well as best as she could from the awkward angle.  
After 10 or so minutes, eventually due to the pressure the blood flow slowed down to a trickle, she tossed the blood soaked towel into the sink and tried taping it up. She didn't have enough cloth bandages to cover all that, so tape it was.

"Damn thing's gonna need stitches" paying attention to her forearm now, where there seemed to be a shallow gash, she wiped up most of the blood off with her hand.  
"This one isn't nearly as bad, just some cloth should do it, i'll wrap it up after I take a shower then" She was mess, sweat and grime and dust covered all her clothes and coated her exposed skin, not to mention her bloodied back.  
"That's what happens when you spend all day in a haunted ass mansion that no one has stepped foot in since the beginning of time." She mumbled to herself

She stripped off the rest of her clothes throwing her clunky boots somewhere in the corner and started the shower. Too tired to care what temperature it was, she stepped in, hissing at the cold water. It slowly warmed up till it was so hot her skin turned as red as the tomatoes she was growing out back. She let her head fall underneath the spray, trying to avoid getting water on the tape...bandage...thing on her back. The water felt nice though, even more so after a night in an old, dusty, decrepit mansion. Not too mention it started raining the second she got near the place. Of course, just her luck right?

She grabbed soap and washed her body and hair faster than she normally would, wanting more than anything to crawl into her fluffy bed. Putting the soap in her hair she felt something was off, confused she ran her fingers through her long hair again, the right side of her hair felt odd...like something was missing.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me.." Where her once long pigtail was, was now just a short mess of hair. She took a deep breath, suddenly torn between trying to not kick something and just being to damn exhausted to do anything but fall asleep.

It was just not her day it seemed. 

"Stupid fucking ghosts...with fucking scythes...whatever ill just deal with it in the morning.." She sighed and finished washing the soap out of her now lopsided hair. Stepping out of the shower she dried off and roughly wrapped her forearm with cloth. Putting on some shorts and a random shirt she climbed into bed not even bothering to get under the covers. She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.


	2. Chapter 2

"Princess.."

"Wake up.."

"Frey it's time to wake up"

Frey slowly opened her eyes, the sound of Vishnal's voice waking her up in the morning was something she had gotten very familiar to over the past few months she had been living in Selphia, and she had to admit it was kind of nice waking up to someone calling her Princess every morning, fake title or not.

She sat up slowly rubbing her eyes, feeling her whole body groan at the effort of simply moving. "Morning Vishnal" she said yawning. Noticing then that he had his back turned to her, his thumbs twiddling in a nervous manor behind his back. "Vishnal what's the matter?" she questioned raising an eyebrow at his strange dreamer

"Yo-u are indecent princess, it would not be proper of me as a gentlemen to gaze at a lady dressed in such a state" She almost smiled at this, typical Vishnal, she wasn't exactly 'indecent' per say, shorts and a loose shirt was actually very normal for her to sleep in...however normally she bothered to get under the covers before falling asleep.

"Alright Vishnal its fine, i'm awake now anyway" She said throwing her legs over the bed. As she stood up she could feel the awkward pull of skin from the tape on her back. The wound was throbbing with a dull pain and there was a sticky feeling that she was sure didn't come from the tape.

'Great...guess I'm making a trip to see Nancy today' She thought and started slowly walking to the bathroom.

She walked into the total disaster that was her bathroom and took off her sleepwear, looking in the mirror she suddenly remembered the other thing that got cut really bad yesterday.

"I really liked how long it was..." She said frowning at her reflection in the mirror, fingers playing with the edges of her very short hair now.

"Well I guess I have no choice but to cut the rest off" She said sighing and walking out to get one of her daggers. Grabbing one and walking to the bathroom she stared at the dagger for a second, she had no scissors so this would have to do. Besides she felt more comfortable with a blade in her hand than a pair of scissors. Nervously she lifted the blade to her last remaining pigtail, above the clip she always wore in her hair to hold it up. Doing this sent a heavy wave of unease though her, she'd had her hair like this for as long as he could remember. Which really wasn't that long because the farthest back her memory stretched was the day she fell out of the sky and onto Venti. So as far as she could remember this is always what she looked like. Which was important...right?

'it doesn't matter anymore, just do it' she steeled herself and finally hacked it off in one go. Her pale green hair fell sadly to the floor of the bathroom, as did the clip, she could hear it land on the tile floor with a soft clink. She stared at her new reflection in the mirror. It looked strange, not at all what she was use too, and her stomach churned uncomfortably at changing herself drastically from the person she was before she fell out of that airship.

"Damn its a little uneven" She said raising the dagger again, attempting to even it out. Once done she looked at it again. It was pretty short now, she ran her hands through it. It made her face look different, not in a good or bad way just...different.

"Its a little choppy looking I guess, but it'll do fine" She said. She hopped into the shower to rinse out all the loose hair, she stood there for a bit letting the hot water relax her sore muscles. The wound on her back had started aching horribly by now and she still felt grimy from last night. Once out she gently patted her back dry, wincing at the new red color on the towel when she pulled it back.

Now dry and clean she went to her closet and grabbed some pants, a clean bra and a sleeveless turtle neck shirt, it wasn't what she had worn the first day she arrived in Selphia, well maybe arrived wasn't that right word, more like fell from the freaking sky, but it was almost fall and it was already a chill in the air.

'Now I could either go get some breakfast at Porco's first or head over to the clinic and get Nancy to sew me up... she thought finding her boots thrown in a random corner in her bathroom. Bending down to pick them up, she realized immediately, was a bad bad idea when pain shot up her spine, instead she had to do an awkward squat to grab her boots, She could feel the gash with every move she made.

"I should go to the clinic first then" She said wincing in pain "I really don't want to deal with this bleeding all over the place" her mind made up she grabbed and strapped the small bag she had for coin and other little things around her thigh and walked out the door.

 

She wasn't expecting it to be a sunny day today, considering how dreary it looked yesterday, But as she walked out the door low and behold, there was the sun shining brightly, with only a few clouds in sight. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her pants and headed for the clinic, it was still fairly early so not many people were up yet, so the only people she ran into on her way there was Lin Fai and Keil, however they seemed to caught up in their conversation to notice her so she went on her way.

Walking into the clinic she spied Nancy standing at a table in the back, probably making potions to sell later today. Nancy looked up from her concoction, when she heard footsteps approaching.

"Frey darling! Good Morning!" Nancy said smiling

"Morning Nancy" she said giving her a small smile, Nancy never failed to cheer her up. She was one of the few people Frey felt close to in the town...although that might have something to do with the fact that she always had to come in to get patched up when she left town. So it was sort of didn't have a choice but to become friends with the older woman.

"Frey! What have you done to your hair! It's so short now..." Oh right she had almost forgotten about it.

"Well it's a long story but a lot of it got cut while I was fighting a monster yesterday, so sadly I had to cut the rest to match..."

"Oh my, well that's certainly unfortunate, although...you know what darling I think short hair suits you even better than your old hair style!" Nancy said with a huge smile on her face.

"Huh?! Really? You think so?" she exclaimed, touching the ends of her new hair with question.

"Yes of course I think so! It makes you look older, and more mysterious" Nancy said with a wink. She felt herself give another small smile at this, like she said Nancy never failed to cheer her up.

"Well thank you..." She trailed off not really sure what to say to all that. Glad that in made her look older though maybe she would finally look her age, and not 12.

"Of course dear. Anyway!" She said eyes bighting and clapping her hands together. "What can I do ya for this morning? Oh I bet it's potions you need right? I keep telling you to buy that chemistry set from us, it'll do you a lot of good, and certainly be cheaper than buying from us all the time"

"Ya I know and I will soon, right now though I'm just trying to focus my money on building my farm more and learning to create weapons and armor, after that this will be the first place I come to"

"If you say so, so potions then? How many do you need today?"

"Well actually... I was wondering if you could patch me up first, I got pretty scratched up last night" She said scratching her head knowing she was about to get fussed over.

"Oh dear, how bad is it? Anything major? It would be best if you let me see right away darling" Nancy said getting a serious note in her tone. As she started to remove her shirt with a little difficulty, she heard Nancy close the curtain behind them. Only in her bra now she watched Nancy approach and slowly start to remove the tape from her back.

"I see you tried fixing it yourself again, If you're going to insist on not coming in to get treated as soon as you get injured then you should at least let me teach you how to properly bandage yourself" Nancy said a slight twinge of annoyance in her voice at Frey's stubbornness.

"Yes I know, I'll take you up on that sometime soon" She said trying not to wince when Nancy got to unwrapping the last bit of the tape. It had bled a little and she could feel it the tape peeling off her skin.

"Frey...this looks awful it needs to be disinfected and stitched up immediately" Nancy said dragging her to one of the two beds in the small clinic.

"Lay down on your stomach darling, I'm going to get disinfectant and sutures"

Laying down on the bed, she faced towards the back of the clinic, watching Nancy out of the corner of her eye, shuffling around, gathering her medical supplies. After a few minutes Nancy came back with a wide basin of water and various other supplies, setting them down on a metal table next to the bed. Nancy grabbed a cloth and dipped it into the water and started to gently clean the wound.

"Frey dear you really should have come here as soon as you got back into town, this gash is quite nasty, you must have lost a lot of blood" Nancy said concern heavy in her voice. The water on the cloth was warm, but it almost felt cool on the hot irritated skin around her wound. She said nothing back, knowing Nancy was use to her antics and stubbornness by now and didn't really need a response. She felt Nancy finish up cleaning the wound and grabbed something else off the table.

"Alright dear hold still alright? This is gonna sting quite a bit"

"Kay" Frey said forcing herself not to jerk at the initial sting as Nancy started using rubbing alcohol to disinfect the wound. Nancy worked quickly this time instead of the slow pace she used to clean the wound a second ago. Dropping the cloth in the basin of water Nancy grabbed the sutras next.

"I'm gonna sew you up now Frey" Nancy said, adjusting her place on the side of the clinic bed into a more comfortable one. Clearly if Nancy was doing that it meant this was gonna take longer than she had originally thought it would.

'Damn...' She thought to herself, 'I'm gonna miss breakfast...' She didn't have a lot of time to ponder on the missed meal, her line of thought was cut off as she felt the needle go though her skin. Her face betrayed nothing, after all she was quite use to this by now, getting badly wounded and choosing foolishly not come to the clinic immediately for care was at this point very much a pattern. Or perhaps it would be better to call it a bad habit?...well whatever. Besides she had already had a lot worse than all these other injuries she'd been getting lately.

Frey closed her eyes attempting to think of anything else other than the feeling of the needle pulling string though her skin. Her mind drifted to the one and only time she had come straight here after a battle In the Water Ruins, and it wasn't just because she had a full grown injured man on her back.

_'The battle had been brutal, it was incredibly intense, with neither human, nor monster horse slowing down to take a breath. Both had been dealing as much damage as they could to each other, she had nearly had her ankle crushed by stomping hooves and it hurt horribly, just moving to try and strike the monster with her blades caused great pain._

_The monster however seemed to have taken more damage than her, getting close enough to slash at him was difficult so she had hit him with as many fireballs as she could muster from her lacking magical abilities at the time, and it seemed to have affected it greatly, she could see him wearing down, just a bit more and she would have this bastard._

_S_ _uddenly it charged again, Frey sprung into action quickly rolling out of the way, narrowly missing getting trampled again by the monsters large hooves or stabbed by the horn on its head. Standing up she immediately ducked again avoiding a powerful lightning bolt that was aimed right at her, she could see the beast panting heavily, nearly exhausted '_

_This is my chance! One more strike and it'll be done for!' She thought, quickly standing up and positioning her blades ready for attack, she recklessly ran full speed at the beast. To focused on giving the final blow to the monster she didn't see the horn on its head powering up for an attack as well._

_As soon as she reached it and moved for the final blow so did the horse. The lightning bolt went straight through her chest, burning its way up to her collar bone. Screaming out in agony, she tried to move away from the pain but her blade was embedded deep in the monster's neck and for some reason she could not let go, her hands didn't want to listen to her. Just when she couldn't take it anymore there was a bright flash and finally, finally the horse disappeared, and in its place lied a man._

_Her body wanting to work now, finally, allowed her to let go of the blades, they clattered loudly to the floor, falling next to the man's body. Falling to her knees she screamed so loudly she was sure she could be heard outside of the temple, she grabbed her chest in pain and screamed again, quickly pulling her hands away from the wound. It burned, it burned so bad...she looked at her shaking hands, there were burns in the shape of the metal hilts were she was holding her daggers. Nothing could compare to how bad her chest hurt though, it felt like she was being ripped in two, her breath came in shallow gasps, she just wanted it to stop._

_'I cant breathe! I can't breathe, holy shit I can't breathe, my lungs are on fire!' Feeling herself start to panic, she tried to force herself to calm down. It wasn't easy she was in a state of utter panic, her body had never experienced this much pain before. But she had to calm down. She could feel herself breathing air though her nose, she just had to clam herself._

_"_ _Its alright I can breathe, I can breathe calm down" She kept repeating the mantra out loud over, and over, and over again._

_"Its alright you can breathe, I can breathe calm down"_

_'Its alright you can_ _breathe, I can breathe calm down.'_

_It took several tries, and she wasn't sure how long she was kneeling there, but eventually she calmed herself down. She could feel her shaky breaths through her nose now, shaky but there._

_Aware now of her surroundings she saw her blades strewn on the ground next to the horse man's body. Even though she didn't want to use her hands let alone move at all, she stood up painfully and grabbed her daggers. Putting them in the straps on her thighs she went over to the man._

_'Is he dead?' She bent down and hesitantly touched his neck, looking for a pulse. Having to move long blue hair out if the way she found one eventually, but it was weak and far too slow._

_'Alright I just have to get us to the clinic, that's it, I can do this' She pondered for a moment how this was going to work, considering he was easily at least a foot taller than her, and no doubt heavier, she looked over towards the entrance of the room where her rucksack sat._

_'I'm gonna have to leave it here, I can't carry both' Bending down slowly she grabbed the man and slung his arms around her neck, being careful to not let anything touch her chest. Slouching over now she grabbed his legs and wrapped them around the small of her back and to the front of her, holding his thighs. Eventually she got the position to work, she was super slouched over, with most of his weight on her back, but it worked._

_Feeling around now for her bracelet that had the spell 'escape' in it, she summoned her magic and pressed it…. and then...nothing_

_What was wrong? She tried to summon all the magic she could and press on the bracelet again but nothing happened. The lightning must have messed up her magic somehow..._

_'Damn' Realization quickly set in that she was going to have to carry him all the way back to town._

_"Fuck."_

_Her hands and chest were already in excruciating pain from just picking him up. But she had to do it, this man could be injured, who knows what being a monster could have done to him? He needed to be taken to the Clinic as soon as possible. Finding the resolve she put one painful foot after one painful foot in front of the other and started walking. The monsters in the temple didn't try and attack her on her way out, whether it be because of the man currently on her back, or because of the fact that she had just single handedly defeated him, right now honestly she didn't care. She could only focus on putting one foot in front of the other. The injury to her ankle she received earlier certainly wasn't helping this process along either. But she kept going, out of the water temple, across the bridge, though the mushroom forest, until finally she spotted the Selphia gates in the distance._

_Walking through the gates, her vision was almost completely white at this point, she was operating on muscle memory to get to the Clinic. In the distance she thought she heard someone scream, but she couldn't be sure. It felt like she was underwater, the pressure on her ears making it so everything was muffled. Busting through the door of the Clinic, she tried to say something, to call for Nancy or Jones to treat this man on her back, but she couldn't._

_"_ _Oh Divine Wind...Jones! Jones! Get down here immediately!" Frey felt the weight of the man being taken off her back, and then nothing...darkness.' She remembered feeling relief, relief that she had actually made it, relief that the strange man would be alright and in good hands._

She remembered waking up in the clinic the next day and being told what happened as well as the extent of her injuries from that battle. She suffered a fractured ankle, several heavy bruises and multiple extreme burns from the lightning. Her ankle had a hoof shaped bruise for weeks, her hands also had burns from the metal of the hilt on them for awhile as well. Both went away eventually though. Her chest though was a different matter, it still bared the horrible scars of where the lightning struck her first. The first thing she remembered seeing when she woke up was blue hair in the bed next to her, she remembered when she first heard the name of the former horse monster that had scared her so badly. His name was…

The Clinic door chimed suddenly, there was a silent pause then a confused shout on the other side of the curtain.

"Hey Nancy you here? It's Dylas"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading the second chapter! As promised its way longer this time, so I hope you guys like it.


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